Two Ways Meditation Helps You Cope With Injury

First, thank you so much for the outpouring of support in response to my recent injury (ICYMI read about it here). When you’re cooped up in the house and pretty much confined to the couch for days and in pain, it’s easy to slide into feelings of isolation and sadness. Each and every message means so much to me. So thank you.

Truth be told, I’m not feeling like myself today. In fact, I’m not really sure what I feel. I woke up feeling a bit numb and unsure of what to do with myself.

So I did what I always do when I feel lost — I meditated, which (for those of you who think that sounds a bit woo woo) really just means that I laid on the floor for 10 minutes and tried to focus on my breath.

No, stillness and silence won’t cure me or make the healing process any quicker or make the pain I’m feeling subside but they sure as hell make it easier to navigate these tough times by giving me the space to remember two key things that I might otherwise forget:

1️⃣ Take it all a moment at a time. In the early stages of injury when so much is still unknown, it’s easy to project your status into the future — to run with the idea that it’ll be like this for a while & to let that thought overwhelm you. Meditation teaches us to stay in the moment we’re in and face only what’s here and now. What happens tomorrow, or next week, or next month doesn’t yet exist. And wrestling with things that aren’t real is a great way to drive yourself nuts. The only thing that matters right now is the next breath, the next moment, the next step. Keep breathing & keep moving forward.

2️⃣ You’re bigger than this injury. When things hurt or are uncomfortable, it’s easy to fixate on those sensations. A regular practice teaches us to zoom out, to reclaim our perspective, and to see that in this moment there’s more going right than is going wrong. Through this practice, we learn to notice our thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they arise. The goal is not to make these things stop — but rather to recognize that they’re only part of our experience & to acknowledge that there’s more to us that what we think or what we feel right now. And nowhere are those skills more valuable than when we’re experiencing pain or injury.

I’m heading to the orthopedist tomorrow to get checked out. Stay tuned.